After fervent pleas, plan moves ahead to drop charges for some Kansas City protesters
Some of the more than 220 people who were arrested in the first days of protests in Kansas City over police brutality could have their charges dropped under an ordinance a City Council committee passed Tuesday.
For more than a week, crowds gathered daily at the Country Club Plaza to protest police violence, racism and the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Over the first weekend of protests, officers donned riot gear, deployed tear gas and arrested dozens of protesters each night.
Now, the City Council is considering legislation offered by Councilman Brandon Ellington to prevent many of those people from being prosecuted — assuming they didn’t commit a violent crime or damage property. The council’s Special Committee on Legal Review voted 3-1 to pass the legislation.
The full City Council is expected to hear it next week, to give member time to review data about the arrests.
The legislation brought more than 100 people to the City Council chambers, with an overflow crowd watching from the lobby, and dozens offered impassioned testimony over more than three hours.
Justine Horn, an organizer of the protests, said since crowds began gathering on the Plaza, the city had seen change. On Thursday, Mayor Quinton Lucas signed onto the demands the group made, including pushing for local control of the police department and putting to use the money it received from donations to purchase body cameras for its officers.
“No one should have to suffer or be punished for the progress we’ve made as a community and as a city,” Horn said.
Ellington’s ordinance would bar the city from prosecuting those who were arrested under Section 50 or Section 70 of the city’s code during protests May 29 through June 2 — so long as the person didn’t damage property or commit a violent offense.
Section 70 mainly deals with traffic laws. Section 50 includes a far more diverse array of ordinances, including drinking in public, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, defacing property, possession of marijuana, indecent exposure and unlawful use of a city trash cart.
Council members amended the ordinance to clarify that it wouldn’t absolve those charged with more serious crimes unrelated to the protest, such as violating a protective order or indecent exposure.
Tuesday’s committee meeting drew the largest crowd in months. Since the pandemic reached Kansas City, city officials have been encouraging the public to stream council proceedings and submit written testimony rather than showing up in person. But with City Hall back open to the public, officials allowed up to 135 people in the chamber — 50% of its normal capacity. The city offered overflow viewing in the lobby.
Numerous members of the audience who attended the protests said police officers incited unrest by showing up in riot gear, pepper spraying the crowd and deploying tear gas.
Sheri Hall, who testified in favor of the legislation, said she saw that most protesters were peaceful and tried to discourage more violent conduct.
“When you have people militarized against you, it raises the tension of everybody in the room,” she said. “People were in riot gear, and there was no riot.”
Several wives of officers and Brad Lemon, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 99, the union that represents Kansas City police, spoke out against the legislation.
A woman who said her husband was an officer — and only identified herself as Erin S. — delivered a stack of hundreds of letters in opposition.
Lemon said if the council waived charges in this case, they would have to consider it for other protests.
“When we start talking about changing these arrests and changing how we handle these, down the road when there’s a subject out here that you don’t like and individuals that you don’t support come out and start protesting, what are you going to do about those arrests?” Lemon said.
Maya Sudduth, who supported the legislation, pushed back on Lemon’s argument.
“You come here and you say that if the shoe was on the other foot — let’s say if the KKK was out and they were protesting, that I wouldn’t be here today for the same ordinance,” Sudduth said. “I would be because this is the thing: We’re talking about peaceful protesting.”
Ellington introduced the ordinance Thursday and suggested his colleagues vote on it the same day, but after Kansas City Police Capt. Scott Simons, the department’s liaison to the city, expressed concerns over fast-tracking the ordinance, council members sent it to committee instead. On Friday — the eighth day of protests — Ellington urged the crowd to turn out in support.
Simons said the council needed to take the time to “vet” the legislation, though he declined to voice a decisive opinion on it. He said when he went to the protest, he saw people throwing water bottles — some of them frozen — and rocks.
“I was down there when they lit a dumpster on fire and were pushing it toward the officers,” Simons said.
But he said officers, at times, cannot pinpoint victims in the crowd, which would be necessary to arrest someone for assault or throwing projectiles.
“Obviously if we can do that and we can maintain visual and we can arrest them for the assault, we would, but typically when that much debris is being thrown, you can’t always see if there’s a victim. If we don’t have a victim in those cases but they’re still part of this crowd that is engaging in that activity, we would probably arrest them for a lesser offense.”
Councilwoman Heather Hall, 1st District, asked that same question of Ellington. But he argued if officers can’t identify a victim to arrest someone for assault, that doesn’t mean they can arrest people for a lesser offense.
“Law enforcement can’t just blindly go through neighborhoods because somebody broke in a house and arrest everybody on the block because they don’t know who broke in that house,” Ellington said, “and that’s what we’re seeing when we’re talking about trampling on people’s constitutional rights to protest.”
Hall voted against the ordinance. Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McManus, Councilman Lee Barnes and Councilwoman Andrea Bough voted for it.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated which council members voted for the ordinance. Ellington sponsored the legislation but is not a member of the committee. Barnes was the third vote in favor of the ordinance.
This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 5:35 PM.
